668 PSTCHOLOO Y. 



In the traditional terminology methods are divided into 

 the mechanical, the ingenious, and the judicious. 



The mechanical methods consist in the intensification, pro- 

 longation, and repetition oi the impression to be remembered. 

 The modern method of teaching children to read by black- 

 board work, in which each word is impressed by the four- 

 fold channel of eye, ear, voice, and Hand, is an example of 

 an improved mechanical method of memorizing. 



Judicious methods of remembering things are nothing but 

 logical ways of conceiving them and working them into 

 rational systems, classifying them, analyzing them into 

 parts, etc., etc. All the sciences are such methods. 



Of ingenious methods, many have been invented, under the 

 name of technical memories. By means of these systems 

 it is often possible to retain entirely disconnected facts, 

 lists of names, numbers, and so forth, so multitudinous as 

 to be entirely unrememberable in a natural way. The 

 method consists usually in a framework learned mechani- 

 cally, of which the mind is supposed to remain in secure 

 and permanent possession. Then, whatever is to be re- 

 membered is deliberately associated by some fanciful 

 analogy or connection wdth some part of this framework, 

 and this connection thenceforward helps its recall. The 

 best known and most used of these devices is the figure- 

 alphabet. To remember numbers, e.g., a figure-alphabet 

 is first formed, in which each numerical digit is represented 

 by one or more letters. The number is then translated into 

 such letters as will best make a word, if possible a word 

 suggestive of the object to Avhich the number belongs. 



sermons by heart, I wrote to the geullemau for corroboration. I append 

 his reply, which shows that the increased facilit}' is due rather to a change 

 in his methods of learning than to his native retentiveness having grown 

 by exercise : "As for memory, mine has improved year by year, except 

 when in ill-health, like a gymnast's muscle. Before twenty it took three 

 or four days to commit an hour-long sermon ; after twenty, two days, one 

 day, half a daj', and now one slow analytic, very attentive or adhesive 

 reading does it. But memory seems to me the most physical of intellectual 

 powers. Bodily ease and freshness have much to do with it. Then there 

 is a great difference of facility in method. I used to commit sentence by 

 sentence. Now I take the idea of the wliole, then its leading divisions, 

 Vnen its subdivisions, then its sentences." 



